Housing association rent arrears threat can they do this?

securityman

Tell me what you want to hear and i will say it if it make's you feel better.

dasophster

jamie11 wrote: »

That's not right, what you and the other residents can do is take over the right to manage (RTM). That would mean getting all the residents to form a company together which would exist solely for that purpose.

There would be costs involved but nothing like 50m Maybe you could do some research into it.

I was told that we could buy the freehold of the development as if it was a feasible option. And was given a link about it not the same as 'right to manage'

dasophster

Madjock wrote: »

I'm not entirely sure where it was that I was rude to you when I replied at 5.09 this morning, but hey ho.

Not you really but some other responses.

dasophster

Let me clarify some things. Firstly the first missed payment three years ago wasn't our fault as the direct debit system didn't take the rent out on the day it was supposed to, the housing association did accept this eventually and said it wouldn't be held against us. We have won prizes for paying our rent regularly and on time since then and had no problems up until now. We were not aware the first payment had bounced until we got the letter. It actually didn't say in the letter to call them, just to take action to clear the arrears as soon as possible, had the letter been more clear yes of course we would have called immediately. Perhaps we were wrong to take the letter at face value?

Secondly my husband did not ignore the call, he was out and about and had no reception on his phone wherever he was, he's on O2 and there are some places here where there is just no reception whatsoever. By the time he got the message it was late in the evening as I believe she called quite late anyway, of course they would not have been in the office at that time. He has been trying to get hold of them and will try again tomorrow. He is struggling at the moment and people are only human, he has been taking care of myself and the kids the past few days because we have all been unwell with a chest infection. Consequently he does have a backlog of paperwork and he works nights 7 days a week. He has a bad knee and also needs to be seen by the GP to get given some medication for something else yet due to all this going on he hasn't been able to address his health issues either. It's not like he has been prioritising the wrong things. The payments bouncing were due to a series of unfortunate circumstances which would not normally all come together at once it wasn't due to negligence or ignoring their contacting us.

I'm sorry if I lost my rag with anyone but there are some here, and thanks to those who gave level headed responses as I genuinely didn't know where we stood, who don't seem to be able to give people the benefit of the doubt and just assume people are being reckless or stupid when you don't know the whole story. There is of course more to this than meets the eye but I can't go into too many details as I don't want to identify ourselves IYKWIM.

I cannot call the rent officer as despite promising three years ago she'd set me up as a joint tenant she has never done this, despite being the only person in the HA who is able to do so. She has however been round on several occasions to drop off leaflets for various furniture and redecoration schemes we aren't even eligible for. The reason I couldn't be added as a joint tenant to begin with was because when we initially signed up to the property, which we were told had to be completed by 5pm that day, we couldn't find a babysitter at such short notice and the signing up was in a church with big open doors that opened onto a busy main road. I had to go back to the car with the children as after them holding us up for two hours they were getting restless and risked running out into the road.

moremore

OP , I know a pensioner that was 54 pence arrears in his rent and got a letter from the council telling him that he as 54pence in arrears and if it happens again the will taken action.

It would have cost the council more to do the letter as it was not a standard one plus the postage to sent it to him.

He was told once before that he had been in arrears, but was not his fault as he paid he rent on time and taken from his account as per usual, (this time it was due to being Christmas bank holiday and it was the fault of the council) as they could not cope with bank holidays and did not deal log his rent despite the money taken from his account as normal, but they took time to send him a nasty letter. I think he wrote back to the council telling them it was not him that was at fault but he got no reply.

There has been another mistakes made with his payment by the council with his rent payments therefore make sure that you check you bank account statements and receipts to see if payment has been taken for your rent as you do not want to pay them twice. I am aware that there has been lots of fraud that takes place in these places so make sure you check everything they take from your account.

I should say that I know that there is a difference between Council and HA is an organization part sector and private sector.

dasophster

Thank you. Their payments are managed by a third party company which can cause problems. On another occasion when the rent was increased in the April it took until around November for the direct debit payments to be updated accordingly, you can pay some amounts manually on the computer system but not less than a certain amount, therefore no-one was able to pay the correct rent every week because the DD system would not allow it. The income/rent officer was repeatedly told about this and nothing was done for months.

Also to anyone who might be thinking this, no we weren't prioritising our money for Christmas as we don't even celebrate it. We spend less than £1.50 per person per day on groceries, have hardly been having the heating on, haven't bought the kids any new clothes or shoes in months even though they need them, etc. I'm sure the HA have to deal with a lot of this type of thing at this time of year people forgoing rent to buy Christmas stuff and perhaps the income officer believes this is the case with us hence her coming down so heavy handed. I also do feel they are a lot more forgiving towards those on housing benefit and other benefits than those who are working full time and it isn't just us who feel this as we've had other residents say the same thing to us. It's like some of the staff don't feel we deserve to live here even though we could in no way afford anything in the private sector. Also when moving in because we weren't entitled to grants like most other residents and my OH was out at work a lot it took us some months to get everything we needed furniture wise and to put up curtains and assemble the furniture after that, when their staff came around they'd really look down their noses at us. When we had our one year check where they decide to give you the more secure type of tenancy, the lady who came round was the same. We could not afford to fully redecorate and still can't. We asked the lady from the HA where to buy the paint needed touching up in a few places, the booklet they gave us when we moved in referred to a shade of Dulux that doesn't exist in the UK not even in their trade paints so I asked her is there a shade number or something. She said 'why? You can just redecorate the whole flat in any colour you know'. Sorry I asked lol.

t0rt0ise

Our HA sends out christmas cards with a jolly picture and Happy Christmas from the HA inside with "don't forget to pay the rent" at the bottom.. LOL.. how thoughtful of them.

mazza111

My old mum's just had a letter from her council with threats too. She owed them 30p from when she moved into the property :eek: She's owed it for almost 4 years it seems but this is the first time she's heard of it. It seems whoever put the first direct debit amount through the system, put it in wrong and it left my mum owing the 30p. However it was muggins that had to go to the rent office to pay it for her as they wouldn't accept a card payment over the phone and wouldn't adjust her DD. Needless to say she went into a blind panic about it as she's never had any debts in her life :rotfl:

dasophster

Crikey. Reminds me a bit of when my friend owed a catalogue 73p and they kept sending her letters about it some recorded delivery.

My OH has repeatedly tried to call this woman again today and it kept going onto voicemail I told him leave a message because at least then she can't deny that you did try and contact her xx